British expectations were lower than ever heading into Wimbledon 2026. The tournament marks a decade since Andy Murray’s glory days, while young prodigy Jack Draper has so far struggled to fill the sizable void left by his Scottish predecessor’s retirement. Unknown wild card Arthur Fery wasn’t expected to make much of a splash at all.
Then, he did. The unheralded wildcard has shocked the world by becoming the first wildcard in 25 years to reach the semifinals at SW19, dispatching French Open finalist Flavio Cobolli in the process to leave British fans dreaming once again. Online betting sites listed the home favourite as a monstrous 500/1 outsider heading into the tournament. Indeed, Sportaza online sportsbook had him at 23/10 to beat Cobolli in the quarterfinals.
But beat him he did, and he did so in dominant fashion, cruising to a straight-set win to set up a crunch semifinal opposite newly minted Grand Slam champion Alexander Zverev. But whose footsteps has young Fery followed in his march to the semifinals as a wild card? Here are the greatest wild-card runs of all time at a Grand Slam.
Goran Ivanišević — Wimbledon 2001
Goran Ivanišević had lost three Wimbledon finals by 2001 — 1992, 1994, 1998 — each close enough to leave a mark, none close enough to satisfy him. His shoulder had all but given out. Ranked 125th, the Croatian got his fourth Wimbledon wild card less out of expectation than respect. Nobody, least of all Ivanišević, thought this was the year.
Then Pete Sampras — four-time defending champion chasing a record eighth title and Björn Borg’s mark of five straight — lost the fourth round to a 19-year-old nobody named Roger Federer. The man who’d felt unbeatable on this lawn for half a decade was gone, and the draw suddenly looked survivable.
Ivanišević beat 21st seed Carlos Moyá, stunned fourth seed Marat Safin, then outlasted sixth seed and home favourite Tim Henman in a semifinal so tense it took three rain-interrupted days to finish. By the time he walked out for the final against third seed Pat Rafter, it was a Monday, the tournament spilling past its usual Sunday close.
Much like Fery a quarter of a century later, Ivanišević was the underdog, especially after that three-day epic against Henman. But he would hold his nerve, winning another drawn-out contest in five sets, claiming the latter of them by nine games to seven. When the last ball landed, Ivanišević sank to his knees, and a nation that had waited a decade for something to celebrate found it on a tennis court in south-west London.
He remains the only wild card ever to win a men’s Grand Slam singles title, the first unseeded Wimbledon champion since Boris Becker in 1985, his ranking rocketing from 125 to 16 almost overnight. The statue in the Croatian city of Split was most certainly earned and will rightfully stand the test of time.
Emma Raducanu — US Open 2021
Two months before she walked out for a US Open final, Emma Raducanu hadn’t played a Grand Slam main draw. Her fourth-round run at Wimbledon had been a curiosity, a name people half-remembered. Ranked outside the top 150, she won three qualifying matches just to get into the tournament — and then she didn’t lose. Not a set, not once, across ten matches against opposition that got tougher every round: 12th seed Belinda Bencic in the quarterfinals, 17th seed Maria Sakkari in the semifinals, each dispatched with a calm that had no business belonging to an 18-year-old who’d been sitting A-level exams the previous summer.
Her opponent in the final, Leylah Fernandez, had taken almost the identical path — a teenager nobody had circled on the draw sheet, suddenly two sets from a major title. It was the first all-teen Grand Slam final in 22 years. Midway through, Raducanu cut her knee and needed a medical timeout, and still closed it out 6–4, 6–3 without a wobble. She became the first qualifier in history, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam singles title, and the first British woman to win a major since 1977. She has struggled to live up to her breakout triumph in the five years since.
Kim Clijsters — US Open 2009
Kim Clijsters retired in 2007 to have a daughter. She came back in 2009 with no ranking, playing only her third tournament since returning, and nobody expected a title run. Then came the semifinal against Serena Williams, two-time defending champion and the most dominant player in the draw, and it turned into one of the most contested nights in US Open history.
Serving to stay alive, Williams was warned for a foot fault, then penalised a full point on a code violation after another dispute with the line judge — on match point. The tournament’s biggest star was gone with the match still technically in her racquet. Clijsters, calm amid the chaos, closed it out, then beat ninth seed Caroline Wozniacki, nine years her junior, 7–5, 6–3, to become the first wild card and first unranked player ever to win a Grand Slam singles title.
Jimmy Connors — US Open 1991
Jimmy Connors was 39, coming off wrist surgery, ranked well outside the top 100, and his wild card felt like sentiment dressed up as competition. Then he came back from a set down to beat Patrick McEnroe, and on his 39th birthday, in front of a crowd that turned Louis Armstrong Stadium into something closer to a rock concert, he saved match points against Aaron Krickstein and won a fifth-set tiebreak people still describe as one of the greatest matches the tournament has staged.
He beat Paul Haarhuis to reach the semifinals — the oldest man to do so since Ken Rosewall in 1974 — before fourth seed Jim Courier, half his age, finally ended it. Courier lost the final to Stefan Edberg. Connors didn’t get a trophy. He got eleven days that, decades later, he still called simply the best of his career.
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